muezzin

Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

n. Islam The crier who calls the faithful to prayer five times a day.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

n. The person who issues the call to prayer from one of the minarets of a mosque.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English

n. A Mohammedan crier of the hour of prayer; the Moslem official of a mosque who summons the faithful to prayer from a minaret five times a day.

from The Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia

n. In Mohammedan countries, a crier who proclaims from the minaret of a mosque (when the mosque has one, otherwise from the side of the mosque) the regular hours of prayer. These hours are dawn, noon, four o'clock in the afternoon, sunset, and nightfall.

Ms Michaeli's so-called muezzin Bill would actually ban the use of such loudspeakers in any place of worship, but is clearly directed at mosques used by Israel's mainly Muslim million-plus Arab minority.

With pride, Kaseem would read the translation of the call, which had been read by millions around the world: Before any prayer session, a man called the muezzin climbs to the top of the mosque’s minaret and sings God is great four times, followed by I testify there is no other God but God twice.

At one time the blind men of the city were employed to call the muezzin from the minarets, lest strange male eyes perceived an unveiled woman such are the wonders of modern science that nowadays the minaret towers are fitted with loudspeakers which do the job far more effectively, and our poor, supported by the State, despise such modest work. "

It was Umar al-Khattab, who was to be the second caliph after the Prophet's death, who suggested that a person call the others to prayer, to which the Prophet instructed a black Muslim youth, Bilal, to make the call to prayer (hence the name Bilal in some languages becoming synonym to the word 'muezzin').

Outside the hospital gates a weeping muezzin gathered protesters for a mass prayer to mourn the death of 10 people on Friday, nine of them pro-opposition tribal fighters and one of them a journalist who died after being shot a few days earlier.